A Year Apart
by Micky Fine
Summary: A series of one-shots and drabbles on the year Hook and Emma were separated.


"Again?"

Hook turned at the unexpected voice and squinted slightly. Were there two men standing behind him or just the one? He blinked slowly and his vision cleared enough for him to discern the unamused face of the prince. Just the one, then.

"Eh?" Hook questioned, unaware of how delayed his response was.

"Grumpy came to see me," the Prince said, slowly walking over to join Hook against the parapet lining the balcony. "He said you got into another brawl at the tavern. Something about saying Red had dog breath," Charming shot Hook a pointed look. "How many fights does that make it this week?"

"What day of the week is it?" Hook asked.

"Wednesday."

"Then that would make it…" Hook trailed off and silently mouthed days as he extended single fingers on his hand. "Four fights. Don't know what the dwarf is telling you for. He's not even tall enough to get his nose into my business."

Charming gave Hook another look and then turned his gaze outward. From where the two of them stood, he could see the entire inlet that surrounded the castle. In the darkness he could just make out the outline of the Jolly Roger docked below them.

"You do this much more and I'm going to have to let the royal guard toss you in the dungeon for a week for disturbing the peace."

"Careful highness, your deputy sheriff streak is showing," Hook taunted, his face twisting in cruel pleasure when the prince closed his eyes in an involuntary show of pain at the verbal barb.

"Feel better?" David muttered, leaning over to rest his arms on the top of the wall.

"Ah but, mate, you're not getting it. The whole point of this is to not feel anything at all," Hook said darkly, mirroring David's posture and leaning against the wall.

"Not sure there's enough rum in the kingdom to pull that off, magic flask or no."

"Well, I aim to try," Hook replied, straightening and moving to pull the aforementioned flask from his hip.

"You honestly think she'd be ok with this?" Charming said, turning to face the pirate and gesturing at the flask in Hook's hand, the gash above his left eye, and the bruise that was slowly coming to the surface on his jaw.

"What does it matter?" Hook asked bitterly. "She can't bloody remember me."

"And that's it? She loses her memory of you and you get pulled back to a land she only will encounter in books and you decide to just drown yourself in rum," David's mouth turned down.

"It's the only way I can bloody breathe!" Hook shot back, his vehemence catching the prince off guard. "I stood there and promised her I would think of her every single day. Which isn't a problem because I can't bloody stop. I can't go more than five minutes without thinking about the look on her face when she walked away from me and climbed into that yellow car. I close my eyes and she's there looking at me with that lost girl expression on her face. I look at your wife and see the stubborn set of her jaw. You go striding around and I see the shadows of her stalking towards me. She's bloody haunting me!"

Hook took a deep breath and started when Charming laid a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Loving someone is never easy," he said quietly.

Hook looked up at David in surprise. This was a conversation they'd never gotten close to having before.

"Aye," Hook agreed uncertainly.

David smiled without the expression reaching his eyes. "I may not be thrilled at the thought of a pirate being in love with my daughter but I think somewhere underneath all that rum, there's a good man lurking. And I think he's someone who could find a way to bring my daughter back to us if he tried hard enough. Love has to be fought for and it shouldn't give up at the first sign of an obstacle. Even if that obstacle is the walls between realms and a broken curse."

Hook remained silent but his expression hinted that the despair had lifted just a bit.

David nodded and turned to go back inside the palace. Before opening the double doors, he said just loud enough that Hook could hear, "We miss her too, pirate. Every minute. Just like you."

Hook watched the prince disappear into the shadows and then turned back out to look at the night sky. Closing his eyes, he was met again with the memories of Emma's face. But for the first time in months she was giving him that small smile of hers and Hook felt the stirring of an emotion he'd been sure he'd lost on that road leading out of Storybrooke: hope.


End file.
